Written by: Alan B. McElroy
Directed by: Andrew Coutts
I thought this one was a perfectly enjoyable, even “classic” (whatever that means) episode - something I’d been hoping for in this season that has seemed a little too “gimmicky” at times.
I wasn’t wowed by it, but it was hitting all the right notes.
And then they got to the Metron reveal, and…I just don’t know. It serves little purpose aside from connecting dots of continuity, and I just don’t find that interesting. It’s fine, I guess, but I think the episode would have been better off without it.
It seems the Metron scene was necessary for the very vocal contingent of fans who have relentlessly expressed their outrage about the Gorn storyline not fitting in their headcanon about Arena.
Annotations for 3x09 up at: https://startrek.website/post/28553786
I finally got a chance to watch it and I thought it was great.
An overdue homage to both Enemy Mine and The Arena, feels like they really cooked with this one 🔥
I love the ending with Ortegas’ epiphany that her new reality is that one of her friends killed one of her other friends.
Other than that bizarre found-footage episode, this entire season has been fire. Somehow they’ve managed to give us more of the crew in 3 seasons than disco ever did, and I’m loving it.
I have such high hopes for the new academy show after what I’ve seen in S3, bring on the next trek golden age!
Finally an Ortegas episode that isn’t a simple “I fly the ship.”
Sometimes, she crashes the ship!
“I fry the ship”
First good episode of the season IMHO.
Ortegas and the gorn playing board games was adorable!
I liked this episode! There are some things that seem impossible, like the moon’s orbit and atmosphere - but that can be explained away by the Metrons. The vaccine thing, although on brand for Star Trek, I thought was silly and unnecessary. There are plenty of other sources of tension available.
Could have used either Metron or Baby Q/Trelane testing the crew this season to explain away the holodeck going haywire or the 4 1/2 vulcans.
Questions at the end of the episode:
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Are we going to address the moral issue of Ortegas just stealing from the Gorn? No, OK cool.
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Why did the shuttle collapse into the ground at that exact moment? or, at all? We saw no other instances of things just falling into the ground on this planetoid.
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Are we going to address the moral issue of Uhura putting 400 lives at risk for the sake of her personal feelings? No, OK cool. That little conversation with Pike doesn’t count. The moral at the end of the story is “It’s OK to lie and put everyone at risk to make yourself feel better.”
There was a little Metron twinkle in the distance right before it happened.
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I was legitimately upset the moment I saw La’An beam down because this was only gonna go one way.
Not a big fan of this episode, I feel that you don’t have the time to develop a friendship between two enemy sworn races, you shouldn’t try to do it.
If you are into Metrons and super powerful entities, just go all the way in, and make time go slower, like the Picard-Flute episode, you can’t have two women playing Heroscape and Chess in two days and being friends forever. Too close to Enemy of Mine, a movie I love, and this fell a bit short.
Currently watching it. Just had to come here to bitch before I can finish it lol.
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I know Star Trek has never really cared about the science behind it all, but come on - the moon that travels through the gas giant’s atmo having any atmosphere nevermind a breathable one is just stupid - just have it not pass through the the gas giant’s atmosphere for christs sake.
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Stupid artificial constraints. Come the fuck on - if the vaccines are soo damn important, why wouldn’t you rendezvous first before dicking around. I know it’s happened plenty of times throughout Star Trek, but this one feels particularly egregious to me.
Yet the floating boulders are so scientifically accurate 😜 (these aren’t other moons, we are told there are 396 moons, to be exact)
I mean I try not to pick everything apart. It’s just some things are so ‘in your face’ to me my brain goes into an error loop.
Especially when you are looking at something thats only purpose is atmosphere vs something that affects the story.
In this case the floating rocks are merely set decoration whereas the orbit through the atmosphere is a pointless artifical timer to add unneeded drama to a situation that already has enough. (And also already has another artifical timer with the vaccine d plot that is only there to make Una the episode’s ‘bad guy’)
- Also, as noted in the episode, we have shuttles… even if it’s slower, you can reduce risk by sending the slower ship with the critical McGuffin toward the rendezvous, and ask the other ship to speed up to compensate. If you’re able to finish the rescue then you can just overtake the shuttle and pick it up on your way to the rendezvous. Either way the critical McGuffin gets delivered. Problem solved.
- I think this can easily be handwaved away since the scenario is artificial in the first place.
- Odds are it’ll take a few days or possible weeks of travel to rondevu with the Constellation.
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Yeah it could be, but still - it was unneccessary. Just having a close orbit would have given the same amount of extra (unneeded) drama.
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That would just make it even worse that they were dicking around instead though?
- Yeah. They waste at least 2 days trying to get Ortega back when maybe they should have just accepted the calculated loss. They even risked the Enterprise in a very dangerous maneuver to force open the wormhole. All around it is a bad call from Pike, but it’s pretty on brand for Starfleet Captains to put an individual over the needs of the many. It’s why Vulcan captains probably suck.
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That was pretty good sci-fi! A solid 7/10.
I loved it that for the first time in SNW the gorn are a bit more than just space orks. Uhura was especially annoying this episode, and got off way too easy with fudging the numbers. Seeing the Metron was fine, I don’t know if most people who watch this watched Arena or are going to, so it gives them a taste. My favourite human-gorn interaction has to be this though: https://youtu.be/4hnBp7x2QAE?t=10
Good retelling of enemy mine but the continuity connection was completely unnecessary
Yeah, I was wondering if the gorn was gonna be pregnant, called Zammis the newborn, and if Ortegas will have to go to the Gorn home world to recite the Jeriba lineage :P
I enjoyed the episode overall, only gripe was Ortega being able to build anything she needs on the fly out of anything.
To be fair, if you look at her quarters, she does tinker with things a lot. So it’s not exactly out of left field that she might have the mechanical knowledge to tinker up some jury rigged devices.
they’ve shown her throughout the season rebuilding a motorcycle
I thought there was a bit of a missed opportunity to delve into her training and experiences during the Klingon War. They’ve used that as part of her backstory, but have given the meatiest stuff to M’Benga and Chapel.
It was pretty obvious from the beginning there would be Metrons.
